domingo, 2 de junho de 2013

The
demonstrations started in Istanbul a few days ago. The initial
objective was to protect the park in Taksim, Istanbul's central square,
from being demolished and replaced by a shopping mall. But the police
intervened with excessive force against a peaceful assembly, liberally
using tear gas to disperse protesters. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan stated that the project will go ahead regardless of the "few"
people that oppose it. As a result, this local dispute was unexpectedly
transformed into a city and then a nation-wide mass demonstration
against his polarizing style.

The
mass protests should be seen as a reaction against the ruling AKP and
Prime Minister Erdogan's style of majoritarian governance. By cementing a
pro-government majority and avoiding consensus on sensitive issues,
Erdogan's political strategy has polarized Turkish society. This
majoritarian approach to decision-making has worked well for him so far.
He not only succeeded in setting the agenda for the country, but he also
increased his popular support over three successive elections. But it
now seems that this style of governance has reached the limit of Turkish
society's tolerance. The recent adoption of a law on alcohol that
significantly impedes the marketing, sales and consumption of alcoholic
drinks had already stirred a debate in Turkey about the government's
negligence to take into account the sensitivities of Turkey's
non-conservatives. Moreover, Erdogan's defense of the law by referencing
religious principles only served to provoke the law's secular
opponents. Instead the decision to transform a public park in the
central square of Istanbul into a shopping mall became the rallying
theme for many Turks to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with Erdogan's
leadership.

Compared
to past rallies in Turkey's democratic history, this week's events
stand out for a number of reasons. First, the mass demonstrations are
against the non-participatory style of decision-making adopted by the
Erdogan government, but they are not ideological. They have not been
hijacked or led by any single political party or ideology, as the
protesters hail from disparate backgrounds and represent the rich
diversity of Turkish society. They are composed of youth, women,
football club supporters, trade unionists, college students, NGO
activists and urban professionals.

Second,
there is for the first time a sense of empowerment against a government
that has dominated the political scene for the past decade. This sense
of popular empowerment stands in stark contrast with the dismal
performance of Turkey's parliamentary opposition. The oft-made
comparisons to the Tahrir demonstrations are not correct. Turkey is a
democracy and there is no call for regime change like in Egypt. The only
overlap with Tahrir remains this immense sense of empowerment and
emancipation by the ordinary citizens that have seen the impact they can
have on the political system if they act in unison.

And
then there is the media. Turkey's mainstream media has become the
laughing stock of the country. While Istanbul was burning with tear gas,
Turkish TV channels were busy broadcasting documentaries, cooking shows
or soap operas. The Saturday edition of the pro-government major daily
Sabah has not mentioned the events. The government imposed a blackout
and the widespread self-censorship further discredited the mainstream
media in the eyes of the Turkish public, which turned to international
media outlets or to social media to follow the events on their streets.
Indeed, one clear winner has been social media. Many Turks rushed to
Twitter and the like to witness the rallies in real time. According to a
study conducted by NYU's Social Media and Political Participation
Laboratory, the social media response to and the role of social media in
the protests has been phenomenal. Within a window of 24 hours, at least
2 million tweets mentioning hashtags related to the protest, have been
posted. Even after midnight on Friday, more than 3,000 tweets about the
protest were published every minute.

The
way forward is, however, unclear. Erdogan conceded a small victory on
Saturday to the protesters by withdrawing the police forces from Taksim
square and admitting to their excessive use of force. But more
defiantly, he reiterated his willingness to proceed with the disputed
Taksim square reconstruction project. Yet regardless of how the events
unfold in the coming days, there are two conclusions that can be drawn
even now from this episode of unplanned and yet massive protest
movements that shook one of Europe's largest cities: one is the glaring
need to fundamentally restructure the media in Turkey; and the other the
urgency of behavioral change in Erdogan's leadership style.

The
blatant failure of the Turkish press to fulfill, even minimally, its
role to report events harms the progress of democracy in Turkey.
Consequently, new measures should be legislated, such as forcing media
companies to shed their non-media activities, to ensure that the
independence of the media can be re-established and maintained. Another
set of rules should focus on safeguarding media pluralism.

Although
they do not represent an immediate threat to Erdogan's rule in Turkey,
these mass protests should nonetheless be taken seriously by the Turkish
Prime Minister. Many Turks have grown increasingly disaffected with the
top-down, non-inclusive style of decision-making that has characterized
the later years of the Erdogan government. They are tired of
polarization and strive for more consensual politics. Erdogan needs to
understand this yearning and adopt a more conciliatory mode of
leadership.

But
possibly even more important for Turkey's future political stability is
the increasingly visible gap on the acceptable forms of dissent between
the Turkish leadership and society. Erdogan seems genuinely to believe
that mass protests have no place in a country administered by a strong,
stable and economically successful government. He emphasizes the ballot
box as the venue for social and political stakeholders to show their
disaffection with the government. "Every four years we hold elections
and this nation makes its choice," he said on Saturday. "Those who have
a problem with government's policies can express their opinions within
the framework of law and democracy." But with its maturing and
increasingly pluralistic civil society, Turkey has moved beyond this
more limited definition of democratic freedoms. The Turkish political
leadership, including the Parliamentary opposition, have to readjust
their outlook. Otherwise with the newly found sense of empowerment of
its citizenry, public turbulence in Turkey will become much more common.

Sinan Ulgen is the chairman of the Istanbul based EDAM think tank and
a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. His Twitter handle is @sinanulgen1